The tragedy of the situation is that the United States had an absolutely mammoth comics industry prior to the scares of the '50s and rather than say suck it, copper they toed the line and all joined the CCA. On the one hand, it gave us Mad Magazine; Bill Gaines (after testifying to Congress) determined there was no point in comics because they'd be so neutered for the foreseeable future that he might as well do "satire." On the other hand it permanently infantilized the American comics industry such that the only thing available was superheroes and Archie.

That, I believe, is why things are so fucking stupid with comics in the US. France has Metal Hurlant. Japan and Korea have a broad spectrum of comics from comics for girls to comics for creepy old men who like chicks with dicks. And while the comics artists I know dig Gimenez and Moebius and Sorayama, the comics fans I know have no idea who those people are.

Going bugshit over the sexualization of Mary Jane makes a lot of sense if your audience is 14-year-old boys. Going bugshit over the discussion of the sexualization of Mary Jane makes a lot of sense if your audience is 24-year-old boys that emotionally arrested at 14. I've seen comics that can hold the attention of adults and also involve superheroes, but those comics also generally involve the deconstruction of the superhero paradigm.

It's funny. I often show my wife some of the weirder, hinkier comics. She generally observes the crimes against anatomy necessary to make them work - and I don't mean tits'n'ass. I showed her that Spiderwoman shot above when it came out last year or the year before. Her comment was "How many vertebrae does that poor girl have in her neck and why are they all trapezoidal?" I actually had to point out the poor girl's butt; my wife had moved on to Spidergirl's lack of a left shoulder. I wonder if the US comics industry might get in less trouble if they drew their girls to be human from time to time.

(the only SFW Sorayama in 3 pages of Google Image results)